Review - The Art of Destiny

Author - BungiePublished by Titan Books

By Jon Evans

Regular readers of our site and listeners of the podcast will know about my love/hate relationship with Destiny. So much was promised, and is yet to come with its universe, and many feel we've only, hopefully, touched the tip of the iceberg. Nevertheless, the game has become a regular part of my life and the universe has struck a chord that will always be part of my gaming history. The Art of Destiny shows how much time and love has been poured into the conceptual DNA of the game, and both fans of the game, but also the sci-fi art genre will be immensely satisfied with the outcome. Bungie have done an admirable job of portraying the design of Destiny from the early steps of finding its identity to the established, beautiful world we see now on our consoles.

The most striking aspect of this book is the amount of content. The majority of the book is art, with explanatory text taking a back seat. Not to say that thet book lacks descriptive background, but Destiny is all about the magnificent vistas, the bewildering complexity of alien species, the melange of different styles of Guardian wardrobe design, the variety of banners, sigils, logos, emblems, weapon loadouts and vehicles. Footnotes are pleasingly simple, but hark to recognisable aspects of the game, some very familiar as Destiny players will know having played them many times, but often in art books the balance of text and graphics can sometimes err on the side of too much written detail. If you are looking for a more in-depth breakdown of the story of Destiny, you may be disappointed. This is all about how the artists of Destiny came to a creative conclusion, without giving too much away for further expansions and versions of the game. It makes a great coffee-table book to make your friends coo with jealousy.

Reprinted from The Art of Destiny by Bungie published by Insight Editions.

Reprinted from The Art of Destiny by Bungie published by Insight Editions.

The artwork itself is very striking, and wouldn't look out of place on the wall of an expensive gallery. Clearly inspired by the work of Chris Foss and Ralph McQuarrie, the predominance of hand drawn and painted designs is stunning and serves to open up the universe of Destiny so much further than what we have seen in the game. The sense of scale and drama is clearly evident. The predominance of non-rendered artwork adds depth, personality and above all humanity to the worlds visited by the various species of Destiny.

The book introduces us to Destiny in a section entitled, 'Shaping the Chaos'. This shows us how the original designs of the world of Destiny have mutated over time. We see a single image, of a helmetless Guardian, standing in front of his dropship, with an analogue of a Snow Tiger by his side, decked out in a mixture of Armour and cloth replete with designs of Arthurian legend on his tattered cloak. This picture, entitled 'Space Tiger', was one of the first pictures that established the look and feel of the universe the designers were looking for, and shows how clear their vision was from the start. The different approaches to the design of the traveller was fascinating, especially as the original version of the tower, the meeting place for all the occupants of Destiny was originally housed within the traveller itself. There are definite reflections of structures from Halo here, but the decision to move away from pure sci-fi to a blend of sci-fi and fantasy was a good one.

Reprinted from The Art of Destiny by Bungie published by Insight Editions.

We also see an overview of the worlds of Destiny, the structures and the landscapes that informed the coders of the game. It is fascinating how close to the original concepts the environments are, and how many emotional hooks there are from my various playthroughs of the game. On Earth, I enjoyed re-looking at the familiar buildings with the standout Cyrillic labelling on the Cosmodrome structures (I found myself using a translation app to read the writing. Try it yourself, you might be surprised with what you discover). It was also interesting to see the concepts that were never used in the game, an extra tidbit of detail that is the lure of buying art books such as this. These designs help to inform the team of the look and feel of the game, however, and there are even various renderings of the same structure, where the artists have played at exploding and destroying them to see how they would look. Examining these environments also highlights how the artists perceived the architecture of the structures were influenced by the different cultures of the alien species and their individual approaches to design and construction. The Militaristic Cabal, for example, have no concerns on the plight of their beautiful environment, and were happy to bulldoze their way through the terrain mercilessly to build their bases.

Reprinted from The Art of Destiny by Bungie published by Insight Editions.

The Iconography of Destiny took my breath away. As a fan of Logo design myself I can appreciate how hard it is to make both a good looking and well balanced logo in terms of colour and style. The pages of gorgeous designs, following a decision to use a flat, clean high contrast style reflects the overall design aesthetic of Destiny. The stock used for the artbook, coupled with the glossy print quality makes these logos really stand out and form some of my favourite pages of the book. To know that these are just a few of many designs, all with uniques looks evokes even more respect for the design team. I've already started looking for prints for my wall.

The following chapters break down the designs of the guardians and other species of the Destiny Universe, the rationale behind the power up animations, with frame by frame explanations should please the wannabe game developers, and the gallery of the hunters cloaks, was similarly special. Here also is an explanation of the science behind the familiar silhouettes of the three character classes of Guardians and the magic formula of their relative armour/cloth ratios. Go back to the game and see if you can spot the pattern. Also, the breakdown of the various alien species and their sub-genuses is fascinating and will save you hours of exploration of the grimoire cards. Yet again these pages hint at so much more to come and it must have been frustrating for the creators of this book to hold content back.

Reprinted from The Art of Destiny by Bungie published by Insight Editions.

The book concludes with a look at the weapons, vehicles and object peppered around the world of Destiny. This is more of a sample of the content (the weapons of destiny could fill another book) and has some of the most Fossian designs here too, especially in the alien craft and walkers. Again, much content to come has been omitted here for the sake of not spoiling further expansions of the game. The most recent player ships are on show which feature as rewards from some of the Dark Below missions. Also too is a sample of the storyboarding used for the narrative cutscenes from the main campaign. These are a flavour only, without going into too much detail.

Reprinted from The Art of Destiny by Bungie published by Insight Editions.

The Art of Destiny focuses on the design and content of the Destiny Universe, rather than exploring the story within. This is a good decision as the strongest feature of the game is its look and feel. The artwork is breathtaking, and well presented in terms of the layout and generosity of design, The shape of the book (2.5 x 29.2 x 26 cm) means that, once opened, the double page spreads create glorious widescreen landscapes that show off the artwork to its best and the high quality paper and ink really demonstrate the vibrant colours of the design aesthetic. The Art of Destiny is an essential buy for fans of the game, but is also a wonderful example of science fiction art at its best.

All Images reprinted from The Art of Destinyby Bungie published by Titan Books.Destiny is a registered trademark of Bungie, Inc. All rights reserved. Game published and distributed by Activision.